Thursday, 23 June 2016

Pat Wingfield has started producing some Bloody Big Battles scenarios for the Russo-Japanese War. He kindly sent me a draft of the Yalu River scenario to playtest.

The river has a 3" penalty to enter the river and a 3" penalty to leave it. The hills are classed as difficult ground AND steep slopes everywhere giving a 6" penalty to every move and -1 to the command rolls.

When I first saw the scenario I was a bit surprised at the disparity in the forces. He has used a scale of 1000 men / 24 guns per base

Russians:
9 Infantry bases in 9 units of 1 base each - they are never spent!
3 Artillery bases at 0.1, 0.25 and 0.5

The Japanese need to capture all 5 objectives and completely destroy the Russian forces to get a victory. A draw is Japan holding all 5 objectives and Russian forces still on the table. Anything else is a Russian victory

I umpired leaving Rodge to command the Japanese and Shaun to command the Russians.

Japanese 2nd and Guards divisions cross the Yalu. Scenario rules force them to cross in march column. Whilst in the river they are Disrupted, cannot use skirmishers and are Tactically Inept. That's a 3 Right shift for any Russian infantry shooting at them.

The Russian view of the Japanese storming the Yalu. The infantry are in Rifle Pits. The nearest Russian artillery piece has been Silenced by the massed Japanese artillery across the river.

The Russian defensive line - the Confederate flags are objective markers. The red markers on the artillery pieces indicate their strength, eg 0.1, and that they can only take 1 hit instead of the normal 2 hits

Time for the Observation Balloon view. The Japanese artillery are in the lower left corner, 12th Division IJA crosses at the Yalu-Ai junction and the Guards and 2nd Division form up to assault the heights.. Most Japanese units are disrupted still from crossing the rivers (the yellow smiley faces)

The 12th and Guards Divisions storm Potetientzu on the right but 2nd Division are held up at Makau

The Japanese army prepares for the final assault against te Russian defenders of Makau

Final positions. The Japanese hold everything north of the Hantuhotzu Stream. however the Russians still have the 1 & 3 Battalions,11th Infantry Regiment on the table and hold 3 objectives.

A Russian victory!

The Russian player rolled some amazing dice. Considering that a single base has 3 Fire Points rounding up to 4 then shooting at the Japanese columns coming across the river gives them 3 shifts to the right , Column; Tactically Inept and no skirmishers taking it up to 12 meant some pretty heavy casualties coming across the Yalu

The Japanese spent a couple of turns trying to cross the River - delayed by bad dice and Russian shooting

Even when they reached the Russian lines they suffered from good firing dice rolling by Shaun

Eventually the Japanese fire power eliminated most of the Russians but the difficult terrain stopped the Japanese from seizing most of the objectives

A great scenario - I had a preconception about how the game would play out - which went out of the window on Turn 1